David Kuehne stands among a small fraction of the Connecticut license plates that make up his massive collection Tuesday July 20, 2010 at his Milford home. Kuehne has over 2000 plates from all over the country but focuses his collection on Connecticut plates. less

David Kuehne stands among a small fraction of the Connecticut license plates that make up his massive collection Tuesday July 20, 2010 at his Milford home. Kuehne has over 2000 plates from all over the country ... more

MILFORD -- For Dave Kuehn, vehicle license plates are a snapshot of history, and collections like his are a timeline tracing the rise of the automobile and the arc of war.

When Connecticut began registering automobiles in 1903, owners were simply assigned a number and they had to make their own "plates,'' he said Tuesday. "A lot of those `pre-issues,' the ones from before the state made them, were of leather. The saddle-makers were glad to have the business; they knew they were in trouble.''

When the first vehicle plates were issued in Connecticut in 1905, they were made of porcelain, with white letters on a black background. All of them had the prefix `C' to show the state it was issued in, he said.

Now the secretary of the Colonial regional chapter of the American License Plate Collectors Association, the 49-year-old Milford man began his hobby in his teens. "My uncle lived in Florida and in New Hampshire and he had a bunch of them,'' Kuehn recalled. "New Englanders never throw anything away.''

His uncle gave him a bunch of plates and Kuehn began stopping by gas stations, car lots and landfills around Milford, asking for discarded plates. They were easy to get at the time, he said.

"Now most of the plates are found on eBay, that's really changed the hobby,'' said Kuehn, who ran a local printing business with his father. "But I go to flea markets, antique shops and conventions too.''

The ALPCA convention was earlier this month in Arlington, Texas, and Kuehn was there, trading some of his duplicate plates and "upgrading'' to plates that are in better condition than ones he already has.

His collection includes examples of every type of motor vehicle plate ever issued in Connecticut, including for cars, trucks, motorcycles, dealers and even manufacturers. One of the 1918 plates was issued to Locomobile, the Bridgeport-based car company.

He also has a plate from all of the 50 states for the year 1961, when he was born, and several "boosters,'' or privately made and sold plates, including one for Stratford's 300th anniversary.

"Like with stamps, coins and baseball cards, condition is everything,'' the Milford man said. "The price of a plate from 1910 or so can range from $10 to $500 depending on the shape it is in.''

Plates from rural areas or those with unusual designs are more expensive than others, according to the association's website, alpca.org The Northwest Territories of Canada issued bear-shaped plates for a time and Tennessee had vehicle plates shaped like the state itself.

Another collector, Tim Hansen of Wisconsin, said on the site that he spent $15 on his initial collection of more than 20 plates, picking up the first one because he liked its colors.

Kuehn said Connecticut's plates are drab by contrast, but they varied through the years more than one might imagine. For example, in 1910 car plates were red, and they changed colors every year after that for nearly a decade. Porcelain plates were replaced by flat metal in 1917, and during World War II plates here went from aluminum to steel to brass to fiberboard as the war effort demanded more raw materials.

"In the beginning plates were different lengths, depending on how many letters or numbers it had,'' the collector said. "The federal government standardized them in 1957 to the size we have now, and directed car makers to design a bumper to fit it.''

That was also the first year that Connecticut used its familiar style of white letters on a blue background.

There is one type of license plate that Kuehn won't collect: the newer, customized ones with flashy graphics and logos of everything from sports teams to the Boy Scouts. "There are just too many of those, but they are a great way to bring younger people into the hobby,'' he said.

And, contrary to popular belief the Connecticut plate with 1 on it does not belong to the governor's car, but to a private citizen, Kuehn said. "It was issued to a state senator from Litchfield who wrote the original Connecticut motor vehicle laws in 1903, and it has stayed in his family ever since.''

But through the 1920s, motor vehicle registration and license plates were handled by the Secretary of the State's office, he said. There was no Department of Motor Vehicles yet. "You'd get this package in the mail ever year from Hartford,'' the collector said. "Things were a lot simpler, but of course most of the roads were still unpaved.''